Megafauna Transect, Indonesia

We had slept up the hill the night before the T1 megafauna transect because we had been doing a bat survey in the primary forest. Arthur brought our breakfast up for us so we could eat before the transect. Apparently, on their way up the hill to meet us, the megafauna transect group had seen booted macaques 30 metres away from the path.

We headed to the start of the transect route (which is 1000 metres total) and had to be silent once we started so we didn’t scare the animals away. We looked out for any signs of our target species such as footprints, scat, or rooting and wallowing sites.

Photo by Kathleen Webster

As always, signs of pigs were seen almost immediately. Their footprints and rooting sites were easy to find along the path. More excitingly, we found anoa tracks early on into the transect meaning they had been close to where we had been sleeping in the primary forest the night before. There were three or four big tracks obviously in the mud and sand which weren’t covered by leaves and hadn’t been washed away so we knew the tracks were fresh.

As we continued along the transect, we found regular evidence of pigs and even found the footprints of a family of pigs that had walked along the path for 20 or so metres. We found several more anoa tracks which was exciting as it is uncommon to see so many.

We heard red knobbed hornbills flying overhead and heard their bark-like calls for three or four minutes as we hiked through the jungle. We also heard macaques at one point but didn’t manage to see any. Once we reached the end of the transect, we visited the cave there, got a group photo and turned back to the camp to get back in time for lunch.

Title photo by Dr Nancy Priston